Dartmouth Gardening
Jungle Boogie
In his book The Wild Garden, William Robinson wrote down his thoughts as to how the English country gentleman or lady set out their estate grounds. Robinson’s books have laid the foundation of the English garden as we know it today.
If we look at the etymology of the word ‘wild’ – it’s thought to be rooted in the Old High German, “wildi” and the Norse “villr”. Both derivations denote disorder and irregularity, which in turn lead to the English will or wilful or uncontrollable.
So how, when the term ‘wild’ denotes an expression of independence from human direction, can you have a wild garden?
Robinson was proposing a gentrified wilderness that was managed and mimicked in part of the estate beyond the garden wall. So this leads me to my recent visit to the allotment of my friends who described themselves as “being new to this gardening lark.” They hadn’t read any gardening books as such and only half read the seed packets. However, despite this produce has grown and been harvested.
My initial thought on viewing their plot was: where are the neat rows that we have all been taught to tend? Their allotment was covered in small clusters of vegetables seemingly creating some bizarre rug or chaos theory. It didn’t sit well. So what about the rules? Why were they not conforming?
I came away with a new thought in my head “why not the wild allotment?”
The early gardening publications were produced from agricultural books with the primary thought of food production, promoting easy to sow and tended in neat rows. But today many of us grow for flavour and without the need to grow a hundredwight of potatoes and cabbage. When only a few are required, why grow 200 beetroot or carrots?
We already mix herbs in the flowerbeds so why not a clump of beetroot with its purple leaves adding a splash of colour to the flowerbed, or any of the myriad designer lettuce as foliage plants?
That’s the real joy of gardening in that you don’t have to follow the rules. We can all have a go at being artistic, setting out our own patch of paradise and being master of all we survey. So as our knowledge grows along with our garden, don’t be afraid to be bold and adventurous and try new things.
First published By The Dart May 2014
